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THE NEW HESPERIDES 




THE NEW HESPERIDES 



THE NEW HESPERIDES 

A POEM READ BEFORE THE SO- 
CIETY OF PHI BETA KAPPA AT 
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, JUNE ii, 1901 

BY 
JOEL ELIAS SPINGARN 



NEW YORK 

PRINTED UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE 

NEW YORK DELTA AT THE 

LAURENTIAN PRESS 

MCMI 



THE tlBHARV OF 
CONGRESS, 

Two C0flE3 RectivED 

lUN. 17 1901 

COPVRIOHT ENTRY 

COPY B. 



Copyright, looi, ly 
JOEL ELIAS SPINGARN 



T5 3^il 



THE NEW HESPERIDES 

Oh, rich in hope, and dowered with happiness, 

Child of the past, and mother of us all, 

I come to pluck a blossom from the tree 

Whose seeds were nurtured in the cloistered hall ; 

I come to garner from thy many flowers 

The nursling of thy tenderest caress ; 

I come, and here I consecrate to thee 

The treasure sought in thy sequestered bowers, 

Myself in thyself, and thyself in me; 

Here at the threshold of our new-world dream, 

Hope of the East in her unhappiest hours, 

I fain once more would hght the Arcadian gleam, 

And follow out the footprints of the quest 

That thro' thy gateway haunts the golden West ; 

I would unfold the ceaseless whispering 

That lured men's hearts to seek a perfect land, 

Thro' infinite to-morrows, following light. 

Until ourselves had found it close at hand ; 

But Summer drowsily knocking at the door 

Bids me be silent, and the passion of Spring 

Freights the young bosom ; in this glimmering clime, 

How shall you bear the clangor of my rhyme, 

And hear the world-old tale repeated o'er ? 

For heart and heaven once again in tune 

Make reason seem unreason ; oh, forget 

The multitudinous voice calling, " June, 

June, our sweet month of ever cloudless dreams, 



[6] 

Hath come at last, hath come at last, and set 

The jewel-weed aflame beside the streams. 

The columbine to dare the roclc-bound height, 

And in the woods a thousand brighter gleams ; " 

Forget the shadowy glade, the tangled brake, 

Hiding the orchid, and the lilied lake. 

Rich in its myriad stars ; — forget all these, 

Tho' memories of their murmurs haunt our air, 

And follow me to mild i^gean seas. 

Where first the vision showered forth its light ; 

Their lovelier fruit it made the orchards bear. 

And wilding dreams gave to a dreamless earth, 

Where pleasure trembles on the brink of pain. 

Where hope mocks hope, and death, foredoomed at birth. 

Haunts our delight or smiles at our disdain, 

Where love is anguish, faith a sanguine stain. 

And friend and foe but obverse and reverse 

Of one base coinage ; there the golden gleam 

Lit the young earth, and mountain-side and stream. 

Ocean and meadow understood the sign ; 

So everywhere it shone, some happy hand 

Built it an altar, sanctified a shrine. 

For incense fed with this the youngest dream 

Of worlds enfranchised from the primal curse, 

The deathless vision of the perfect land. 

In the lone valleys of a Western isle. 
Beyond the venturous reach of Grecian sail, 
A mortal maid had won Poseidon's smile ; 
The estranging sea enclosed her quiet vale. 
And there, love's willing prisoner, she reared 
Heroic offspring ; by their mother borne, 
And subject to the heritage of pain, 



[7] 

In them a flitting godhead still appeared, 

Not knowing human labors ; so their sire 

Made of their isle a marvellous domain 

Of plant and herb, and leagues of smiling corn, 

Untilled, unploughed, but ever plentiful ; 

He gave them food that needed not the fire. 

Built palaces that never could decay, 

Or moulder into ruins ; there the bees 

Gave willingly their sweets, and sheep their wool, 

For warmth at eve and honeyed mouths at day ; 

There fruit and harvest in the mellow breeze. 

And kisses of a mild luxurious sun. 

Found their rich ripening ; in this fairest clime. 

Where pleasure waited, willing to be won. 

He made them and their offspring for all time 

Devoid of toil, and doomed to count the hours 

By lily-languors, and the hollow years 

By changeless mood and lotos-eating rest, — 

A fitting home for all the immortal powers. 

But not for men from mortal mother sprung. 

And born to the vain happiness of tears. 

So they grew weary of their jewelled cage, 

And like young birds longed for the wildwood nest ; 

The ripening fruit still to the branches clung, 

The oarless sea lost all its quickening zest. 

For hearts were weary, and they longed to wage 

Fierce struggles with themselves and all the world ; 

Till the immortal, seeing all was vain, 

And sickening of their futile frenzies, hurled 

Their isle to atoms, and the people grope 

Forever in the immemorial main. 

Here were indeed an Island of the Blest, 

Which Plato's dream, and orient human hope, 



[8] 

Reared in the golden West ; 

But what avails the fairest-hued young vision, 

Arcadian or Elysian, 

If summer bark should venture winter weather, 

And heart and hope be mated not together ? 

Dreams are for dreamers, toil for human hands ; ' 

And he who seeks shall find, shall surely find. 

The only perfect lands. 

No longer can the clouded hope disguise 
The dreamer's heritage to the daedal mind ; 
Oh, evermore beneath the open skies. 
The hallowed shimmer on mysterious strands, 
The undying vision and the ceaseless quest. 
Shall haunt the windy world, and all men's eyes 
Burn with the sun toward the wondrous West. 
Some seek the mellow fruit whose blossoms flame 
Hesperidean gardens, others dare 
The wilder seas that knew no charted name, 
Bound for Saturnian continents, and fare 
Thro' tempest to the Fortunate Isles of fame, 
Forever seeking what they could not find. 
Forever finding what they did not seek ; 
And when Olympus, silent in its shame 
At sight of Delphi closed and Sibyls blind. 
Heard heaven thunder and the one God speak, 
The vision found new ardors, and the quest 
Sent purer spirits ever farther West ; 
As when St. Malo, in his hermit cell. 
Heart-weary of the changeless day and night. 
Prayers ever faithful to the chapel bell. 
And human deed foreswearing human right, 
On mouldy legends of his pagan home 



[9] 

Fed all his dreaming hours, — Fields of Delight, 

The Isle of Heroes, Avalon, and Mag Mell ; 

Until he yearned to burst the bonds, and roam 

To find his dream, and reach the perfect isle. 

Where freedom's fetterless wings could never tire. 

And nature's law chimed with the heart's desire. 

Bold, brawny mariners manned his coracle. 

And thro' the waste they covered mile on mile. 

Saw many marvels, many a giant race. 

Enchanted realms, but not the perfect place. 

Wearier and wearier grew his men, and he 

Doubted the vision ; in the tossing night. 

Sick of the hope that would not let him be, 

He slept, and to his fitful slumbers came 

A radiant spirit garmented in flame, 

And said to him : " What hast thou sought, and where ? 

Vain is the quest that over land and sea 

Seeks the Eternal ; He is here and there ; 

In every virtuous heart He builds His shrine. 

And all pure thoughts climb the wide altar-stair ; 

Yet if thou seekest for the perfect place, 

Not here His kingdom ; but by pious prayer 

And noble thought to noble action wed. 

Before His throne on the great judgment day. 

It may be thou shalt meet Him face to face." 

Then waking from his dream, St. Malo said, 

" Seven weary years and fruitless have been mine ! " 

And turning eastward, swiftly took his way 

To that lone cell the angel called divine. 

Angel of light and being without spot. 

Well mayest thou smile at our imperfect earth. 

The orbit of our unillumined lot, 



[10] 

Who in thy higher realm hast bodied forth 
The visible pageantry of quenchless light, 
For there His kingdom ever must endure, 
And where His kingdom is not, there is night ; 
Whilst here the canker gnawing at the rose 
Blights the young bud of truth, and all the fruit 
Is buried in the drift of winter snows ; 
But truth outlasts her wild December hours, 
For Spring finds Summer trembling in the root. 
And the March mists are melting into flowers : 
A fairer music ever waits the lute. 
And every rising sun helps us to chart 
New El Dorados, year by year to mine 
New Californias in the golden heart. 
And win new Edens in the deed divine ; 
Infinite toil is yet to overwhelm. 
Ere our poor earth is worthy of His realm ; 
But His the promise, His the glory be. 
And here at last, before the years are done. 
Our infinite hope and infinite faith may see 
His earthly kingdom won. 

Once more the vision whispered in the trees 
Her portents, calling sturdy hearts to seek 
Travail and turmoil nothing could appease, — 
To dare the dizzy starlight of the peak. 
Or fairy foam of far mysterious seas : 
The whole earth beckoned ; everywhere the gleam 
Guided the helm thro' stormy night and day. 
For all the world was brooding on the dream ; 
Farther and farther did they race the breeze, 
Whither they knew not, wherefore who could say ? 



[II] 

Until there came the marvellous Genoese, 

Who carried a new world in his own heart 

For twenty bitter years, till he at last 

Found fitting home for the Hesperides, 

And the dream planted on the sailor's chart : 

Not silken splendor of the East, nor gold 

From Himalayan hills, nor loaded ships, 

The famed mariner found ; but from the vast 

The primal shadows sullenly unrolled, 

And his bright torch turned light on the eclipse. 

New world, new quest ; and thither many flocked, 

To find the realms of hope, but doomed to sleep 

Forever in the lonely glen, or rocked, 

Like idle wreckage, on the charnel deep ; 

And there, far off, the wildernesses called. 

With siren music and the siren smile. 

To hardier spirits, and they sought, enthralled. 

The spires of Norumbega, or the gold 

Of El Dorado, or St. Brandan's Isle, 

Or marvels that the Seven Cities hold ; 

But nobler natures, careless of the guile 

And lust of treasure, threw the dice with death, 

And lost or won ; but ever in the quest. 

Like some swift sea-bird never needing rest, 

Following perfervid in the wake of truth. 

The vision's inextinguishable breath 

Fanned the bright flame of hope ; thro' deep morass. 

Thro' ivy-tangles and magnolia-bloom, 

The soldier Ponce de Leon longed to pass, 

To find the Fountain of Eternal Youth ; 

Not there he gained, nor in strange Yucatan 

(Where Cortez dared the Aztec gods), nor where 



LofC. 



[12] 

De Soto found his glorious river-doom, 
What must be sought within the heart of man. 
Many there followed, searching for the height 
Shimmering with trophies of victorious deeds. 
But overlooking flowers and finding weeds ; 
They bartered treasure for the golden gleam. 
Sowing the dawn to reap the endless night, 
And for a mess of pottage sold the dream ; 
Seedsmen of discord and an inward doom, 
Pirates and plunderers and buccaneers, 
With gold thy cheapened beauty's roseate bloom ; 
For what avails the fairest-hued young vision. 
Arcadian or Elysian, 

If the young lover should forget his tryst. 
And for the maid, unworthy lips had kissed ? 
Oh, he might seek it in the East or West, 
Dive for it, soar for it on distant strand ; 
Only the seeker worthy of the quest 
Shall find the perfect land. 

O country that Columbus sought in vain, 
And seeking thee De Leon found no peace. 
For us they left the dream to reap, and gain 
A fairer Golden Fleece ; 
For us they left the unascended heights, 
And in our lives to light the eternal fires. 
Like pinnacled stars of unimagined nights ; 
For us they left these more than fortunate Isles, 
Which we have found in our own sweet desires. 
And guarded round with nature's fairest smiles ; 
O dearest land, that deep in Lincoln's heart. 
In Franklin's brain, and in the righteous sword 



[13] 

Of Washington, hast built thine eagle's-nest, 

And in their fame thy greater glory stored, 

Kindling the light that never can depart, — 

In that high citadel within the mind, 

Whose masonry outlasts the baser hand, 

They reared a realm we daily hope to find : 

To live the vision is the perfect land, 

And from all corners of our happy West, 

From Shasta to the Southern gulf, it thrills 

Prairie and peak with promise of new dawn ; 

Nor all the treasure hoarded in our hills. 

Nor all the metals moulded by our hands, 

Nor thundering beat of more than human brawn 

From out the glowing furnace, nor the ships 

Unloading all our toil in distant lands. 

That star of higher glory can eclipse : 

True to ourselves, true to the dream, and true 

To the sweet stars emblazoned in the blue, 

Oh, who can tell the harvest we shall reap. 

Who sow as seeds the truths that never sleep, 

Daring the future ? Not for us to solve 

The unreasoning reason of superfluous woe, 

Death, and the mystery of our sins and hates. 

Or rapture of the amethystine glow ; 

But time to conquer, and unequal fates 

To equalize in their supreme resolve, 

Thro' the slow changes of unchanging time ; 

All the great nations shaped themselves for this. 

All the great battles fought for this one cry. 

All the great heroes died for this one bliss ; 

O lovely Eden, panting in the sway 

That freedom gives, grow mightier with its powers. 



[14] 

And prove thy heroes did not die in vain, 
In the mere turmoil of insurgent hours ; 
For now at last the world is man's to gain, 
And all our hopes foresee that happier day. 
When man with God shall in one godhead reign ! 

The End. 



THREE HUNDRED AND 
FIFTY COPIES OF THE 
NEW HESPERIDES HAVE 
BEEN PRINTED AND 
THE TYPE DISTRIBUTED 

c 

THIS IS NUMBER 



JuN 17 1901 



IBRARY OF CONGRESS 1 

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THE NEW HESPERIDES 



